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Three-for-three

Posted by Brian from Shawnee on August 17, 2004

In Reply to: Three-for-three posted by Bookworm on August 17, 2004

: : As soon as the astronauts in a space shuttle succeed in releasing a satellite, the officer in Mission Control Center Houston says to them "congratulations!Three-for-three!
: : Would someone help me with the phrase"three for three",please? What does it mean?

: The phrase means that 3 things were attempted and one was successful all 3 times. "3 out of 3" is also used, and of course, the numbers can be changed to fit any particular situation.

: I would guess that the meaning comes from baseball and the calculation of batting average. An alternative phrase is "batting a thousand".

Technically, in baseball when you say "three for three" you'd usually be referring to a single batter's performance in a single game. Batting average is the batter's performance over an entire season. So, Mission Control is congratulating the crew for completing 3 tasks during the current mission, rather than 3 tasks over 3 successive missions. That is, assuming the officer at Mission Control is a baseball fan and is applying the phrase consistently with its baseball meaning!

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